Shopping cart
Your cart empty!
Terms of use dolor sit amet consectetur, adipisicing elit. Recusandae provident ullam aperiam quo ad non corrupti sit vel quam repellat ipsa quod sed, repellendus adipisci, ducimus ea modi odio assumenda.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sequi, cum esse possimus officiis amet ea voluptatibus libero! Dolorum assumenda esse, deserunt ipsum ad iusto! Praesentium error nobis tenetur at, quis nostrum facere excepturi architecto totam.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Inventore, soluta alias eaque modi ipsum sint iusto fugiat vero velit rerum.
Sequi, cum esse possimus officiis amet ea voluptatibus libero! Dolorum assumenda esse, deserunt ipsum ad iusto! Praesentium error nobis tenetur at, quis nostrum facere excepturi architecto totam.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Inventore, soluta alias eaque modi ipsum sint iusto fugiat vero velit rerum.
Dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sequi, cum esse possimus officiis amet ea voluptatibus libero! Dolorum assumenda esse, deserunt ipsum ad iusto! Praesentium error nobis tenetur at, quis nostrum facere excepturi architecto totam.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Inventore, soluta alias eaque modi ipsum sint iusto fugiat vero velit rerum.
Sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Sequi, cum esse possimus officiis amet ea voluptatibus libero! Dolorum assumenda esse, deserunt ipsum ad iusto! Praesentium error nobis tenetur at, quis nostrum facere excepturi architecto totam.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Inventore, soluta alias eaque modi ipsum sint iusto fugiat vero velit rerum.
Do you agree to our terms? Sign up
It might feel like it's been even longer for the prime minister at the moment, but it's been a whole year since Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party won a historic landslide, emphatically defeating Rishi Sunak's Conservatives and securing a 174-seat majority.
Over that time, Sir Keir and his party have regularly reset or restated their list of milestones, missions, targets and pledges - things they say they will achieve while in power (so long as they can get all their policies past their own MPs). We've had a look at the ones they have repeated most consistently, and how they are going so far.
Overall, it amounts to what appears to be some success on economic metrics, but limited progress at best towards many of their key policy objectives. From healthcare to housebuilding, from crime to clean power, and from small boats to squeezed budgets, here are nine charts that show the country's performance before and after Labour came to power, and how close the government are to achieving their goals.
Cost of living On paper, the target that Labour have set themselves on improving living standards is by quite a distance the easiest to achieve of anything they have spoken about. They have not set a specific number to aim for, and every previous parliament on record has overseen an increase in real terms disposable income.
The closest it got to not happening was the last parliament, though. From December 2019 to June 2024, disposable income per quarter rose by just £24, thanks in part to the energy crisis that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
By way of comparison, there was a rise of almost £600 per quarter during the five years following Thatcher's final election victory in 1987, and over £500 between Blair's 1997 victory and his 2001 re-election. After the first six months of the latest government, it had risen by £144, the fastest start of any government going back to at least 1954.
As of March, it had fallen to £81, but that still leaves them second at this stage, behind only Thatcher's third term. VERDICT: Going well, but should have been more ambitious with their target Get inflation back to 2% So, we have got more money to play with.
But it might not always feel like that, as average prices are still rising at a historically high rate. Inflation fell consistently during the last year and a half of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, dropping from a peak of 11.1% in October 2022 to exactly 2% - the Bank of England target - in June 2024.
It continued to fall in Labour’s first couple of months, but has steadily climbed back up since then and reached 3.4% in May. When we include housing costs as well, prices are up by 4% in the last year.
Average wages are currently rising by just over 5%, so that explains the overall improvement in living standards that we mentioned earlier. But there are signs that the labour market is beginning to slow following the introduction of higher national insurance rates for employers in April.
If inflation remains high and wages begin to stagnate, we will see a quick reversal to the good start the government have made on disposable income. VERDICT: Something to keep an eye on - there could be a bigger price to pay in years to come 'Smash the gangs' One of Starmer’s most memorable promises during the election campaign was that he would “smash the gangs”, and drastically reduce the number of people crossing the Channel to illegally enter the country.
More than 40,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the 12 months since Labour came to power, a rise of over 12,000 (40%) compared with the previous year. Labour have said that better weather in the first half of this year has contributed to more favourable conditions for smugglers, but our research shows crossings have also risen on days when the weather is not so good.
VERDICT: As it stands, it looks like “the gangs” are smashing the government Reduce NHS waits One of Labour’s more ambitious targets, and one in which they will be relying on big improvements in years to come to achieve. Starmer says that no more than 8% of people will wait longer than 18 weeks for NHS treatment by the time of the next election.
When they took over, it was more than five times higher than that. And it still is now, falling very slightly from 41.1% to 40.3% over the 10 months that we have data for.
So not much movement yet. Independent modelling by the Health Foundation suggests that reaching the target is "still feasible.